


Basilisk

by Cameron_McKell



Series: Adrift and Related Works [12]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Comic Book Science, Friendship, Gen, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9273134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: Wally takes Conner on a field trip to learn a skill.





	

            _“Recognized: Kid Flash – B 03.”_

            Before the computer had finished announcing his arrival, Wally sped his way through the mountain and right up into Conner's face. “Hey, Supey! Field trip!”

 

            Conner put a hand on Wally's forehead and – gently, gently, because his teammates were so very breakable in comparison to him – pushed him out to arm's reach. “What are you talking about?”

 

            Wally just rested against his hand and flailed for a moment, then stepped back and whirled around him faster than he could follow. “We're going to Hawaii!”

 

            “Hawaii?” Immediately, Conner's mind brought up scores of static data – volcanic activity, weather patterns, harmful and benign flora and fauna, things like that – and he frowned. “I haven't heard about a mission, recently.”

 

            “No mission,” Wally chirped in confirmation, then sort of stumbled to an embarrassed halt. “It's sort of a 'training and practice' thing.”

 

            Conner folded his arms over his chest and waited.

 

            “I was talking with Flash,” Wally flinched at whatever expression took over Superboy's face at the mention of the supportive – _extremely_ supportive – relationship between Kid Flash and his mentor, but pushed forward anyway. “and we agreed that, since you can't fly –”

 

            Conner turned around and started walking away, fists clenching over the biceps of his folded arms. This whole conversation was just adding insult to injury.

 

            Wally zipped around in front of him again, arms thrown out to either block the passage, or calm the taller teen like a spooked horse. “Iwasn'tfinished! Just hear me out, okay?”

 

            Conner snorted angrily, but let his arms drop to his sides.

 

            “Thanks,” Wally shot him a brief smile, then flipped back to the matter at hand. “Anyway. We figured I could show you a Flash Family trade secret? I mean, _yeah_ , it's not flying, but the practical applicationsare _surprisingly –_ ” Conner only partially paid attention as Wally began babbling in superspeed, instead focusing on the main points as they'd been told to him.

 

            His inability to fly was just one of many issues in the rift between himself and Superman, one that might never be resolved, but here was Wally – generally not regarded as the most thoughtful of beings – practically vibrating in place with excitement to teach him a 'trade secret' of the Flash Family? He thought of Black Canary, sharing what she knew to help him feel included until Superman came around, and now... this?

 

            It made his chest hurt, but in a good way.

 

            Wally was still babbling, albeit a bit closer to a normal speed again. “– and we all think you should easily be fast enough – though I think we should hold off on trying for cyclones and stuff. I don't know how your brain processes rapid perpetual turns at superspeed, and I don't want you to hurl on me or anything. So. Yeah.” He was finally winding down. “What do you say?”

 

            Conner watched Wally panting to get his breath back for a second or two, then shrugged. “Sure.”

 

            Wally beamed at him. “Awesome!” He disappeared in a gust of wind, then reappeared in costume, still settling the red lightning bolt ear covers of his cowl into place. “I'd suggest changing into your swim trunks, or at least something you don't mind running around in wet.”

 

            Conner nodded, then started for his room. Wally trotted along beside him, adjusting his goggles. “What are we doing, anyway?”

 

            “We,” Wally proclaimed grandly, snapping his goggles over his eyes for dramatic effect. “are going to run on water.”

 

* * *

 

            The lagoon was pretty to look at only the first seven times he fell into it; after that, it was just irritating.

 

            “Harder than it looks, isn't it?”

 

            Growling in frustration, Conner shot a baleful look toward the outcropping of rock Wally was perched on – he was even kicking his legs back and forth, like those little kids he'd seen at the park a few weeks ago – and let himself sink until his feet touched the sandy bottom. He crouched slightly to tense up his leg muscles, then launched himself up through the water and into the air. Wally stood up, and was already halfway down the rocks toward the beach when Conner landed with a heavy thud in the sand, trailing seawater like a cape.

 

            “Ready to learn now, Mr. 'How Hard Can It Be'?” Wally grinned smugly, hands on the black lightning bolts over his hips, only to flinch back several yards when Conner shook the water off like a dog, right into his face.

 

            Conner smirked at his slightly-drippy friend, then made an effort to blow out his previously gathered frustration in one big sigh. He _had_ kind of brought all that on himself, after all.

 

            “Yeah, I guess.”

 

            “'You guess', huh?” Wally shook his head with a laugh, then walked over to Conner's side, his yellow boots sinking down into the sand with each slow step. “Okay. First off, do you know any hydrodynamics?”

 

            Conner shook his head; Cadmus had focused on other disciplines during his training, mostly solid facts and 'the big picture'. They hadn't bothered with scientific concepts they'd determined he would be unlikely to face or need.

 

            Wally nodded like the answer didn't surprise him. “Right, how about fluid dynamics, or aerodynamics? They're both pretty similar...”

 

            “Aerodynamics,” Conner replied, unable to keep the tightness from his voice, but at least he'd managed not to curl his hands into fists again. There was nothing around for him to punch, anyway, other than Wally, and he wasn't about to do that when his friend was trying to help him.

 

            “So you know about lift,” Wally continued on, neither of them acknowledging the big, blue elephant in the room, so they could move past it. “and how the shape of a thing, and how the air hits it, can dramatically affect whether and how much a thing creates an upward force. With me so far?”

 

            Conner nodded, then blinked in surprise when Wally hooked an arm through his, and tugged him away from the water, back toward the paved parking space they'd passed earlier upon arrival.

 

            “Running on water's a lot like that,” Wally cut himself off abruptly, as if he'd been about to continue that thought, but stopped himself. The silence didn't last long, though, before he was gesturing down to their feet, still sinking into the sand as they moved. “Sand's similar, because it moves like a liquid, even though it's a solid. Here, let me show you something.”

 

            They'd finally reached the concrete slabs that made up the parking space, and Wally hopped out onto it, several feet away. “Watch how I move on a fully solid surface. Pay extra attention to my feet, and as soon as you feel like you've got a handle on what I'm doing, describe it.”

 

            Narrowing his eyes in a subconscious show of focus, Conner nodded, and Wally started walking at a relatively slow, smooth pace. For almost a solid minute, the only sounds came from the tap and squeak of Wally’s boots on concrete, and the faint crash of waves.

 

            “You step forward with your heel first,” Conner spoke up abruptly, tilting his head slightly. “Then, you rotate forward onto the ball of your foot as you bring your other heel forward and sort of… push off with your toes?”

 

            “Yep!” Wally grinned, pointing at him with a single ‘finger gun’ as he turned to face him again.

 

            “This sort of rolling, heel-first stride is generally the most efficient way to move in shoes or boots or whatever if they have stiff, or even semi-stiff soles. My running boots have pretty hard soles so they don’t wear out as fast, so this is the sort of stride Flash and I use the most. There’s a different stride style if you’re barefoot or in really flexible shoes where you step toe-first which a lot of people like, but it can be kind of painful if you’re not used to it and the more flexible shoes don’t help as much with things like rocks and broken glass.”

 

Connor nodded, reflecting on the way he tended to move in his own boots and committing the new information to memory. Wally then took several light, almost dance-like, steps to the side, until he was standing in the sand, and attempted to move in the same way; it clearly wasn’t working very well.

 

            “It – _agh_ – works so well on hard surfaces because you only – whoa – use part of your foot at a time, so there’s less friction, ergo more ‘go’.” Wally snickered at his own wordplay, pinwheeling his arms briefly to maintain his balance, and Conner rolled his eyes. “It, uh, doesn’t work, though if – come on – the surface gives way underneath you, like sand or a liquid want to do.” It was true; instead of the smooth, even motion from the concrete walk, Wally sank into the sand with each step forward, ending each step either kicking up sand and bogging himself down, or stopping briefly to pull his legs up closer to the surface.

 

            “Is this why I keep falling in?” Conner asked, recalling how quickly he’d sunk into the water, kicking gallons and gallons blocking the progress of his knees, thighs, and eventually his whole body.

 

            “Part of it,” Wally agreed, finally stopping, then plopping to a seat down on the sand. He patted the space next to him, and reluctantly Conner joined him. He was going to have sand sticking to places he didn’t even know he _had_ , at this rate.

 

            “There’s also the matter of surface tension to consider,” Wally continued, dragging his fingers through the fine white grains of imported sand. “Under certain circumstances, fluids can react like solids.” To demonstrate his point, he pulled his hand out of the sand then slapped it down, hard. In that moment of impact, the sand held firm. Then, he brought his hand down at the sand again, significantly slower, and it pushed through with ease.

 

            “That’s why space shuttles have to control their speed and angle of descent through the atmosphere; otherwise, they’ll bounce back off,” Conner nodded along, and Wally let out a low whistle.

 

            “I guess Cadmus wasn’t joking around when they taught you about aerodynamics. Yeah, that’s exactly why.”

 

            “So, you have to be moving fast enough over the water. What about angle, then?” Conner asked, trying to connect the other aspect of the analogy together.

 

            “You’ll want your steps to be as close to perpendicular to the fluid you’re running over as possible to get that lift; the closer to parallel you get, the more likely it is you’ll get a more… ballistic trajectory, and get pulled under.”

 

            “But that’s just jumping in place,” Conner objected; though, considering how far he could move in a single bound, it was still useful information.

 

            Wally grinned. “The trick to moving forward comes from Sir Isaac Newton. Specifically, his third law of motion.”

 

            “’For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’?” Conner quoted reflexively, wondering where Wally was going with this.

 

            “Right.” Wally nodded. “To create a force to push yourself forward,” He placed his palm down against the surface of the sand demonstratively. “You have to exert a force pushing the water _back_.” He mimed the action, pushing sand backward to ‘propel’ his hand forward.

 

            “And that’s pretty much it,” Wally concluded. “Step straight down on the water hard and fast to keep yourself on top, then push it backward to push you forward. It takes some fine-tuning to get that perfect ratio of speed and force – I have to use more speed, but you can probably do fine by using greater force – and the stride’s a little weird and takes a bit of getting used to, but after that it’s clean sailing.”

 

            Wally brushed the excess sand from his hands off against the legs of his suit and hopped up, then turned to offer Conner a hand. Both knew he didn’t need it, but Conner accepted it with a small, hesitant smile. He took a minute to try and brush the sand from the back of his trunks, then started walking back toward the lagoon.

 

            He stopped roughly twenty feet from the edge of the water, and Wally drew up even with him. He stared for a moment, calculating, then – gently, gently – nudged the shorter hero with his arm. “Where should I run to?”

 

            “How about we play tag?” Wally suggested. As Conner considered this, the speedster reached over and playfully booped him on the nose. “You’re it!”

 

            Before Conner could finish shouting “Hey!”, Wally was already running toward the water at a leisurely-for-him pace, immediately kicking into a higher gear as Conner began to chase.

 

            As the sun started to set hours later, Conner and Wally were stretched out, both soaked but smiling, over the black sand beach of an entirely different Hawaiian island, and it didn’t even hurt when something occurred to Conner.

 

            “If this is how the Flashes run on water,” he asked, “how does Superman do it?”

 

            “Have you ever seen footage from one of his and Flash’s charity races?” Wally asked with a laugh. “Clean heel-toe running, barely any contact with the water at all; he practically ‘flies’ along.”

 

            “You mean –”

 

            “Yep,” Wally crowed. “The Big Blue Boy Scout _cheats_!”

**Author's Note:**

> The water running method described (to the best of my ability) is/should be that of the Basilisk lizard (hence the title). 
> 
> All science discussion info comes either from my own personal knowledge (and therefore may be subject to my faulty memory), research I did in the past for this story (which I forgot to keep the source information on because I'm a chump), or wild guessing/established comic book science stuff.


End file.
